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Archive for March, 2015

Here are two different perceptions of the development aid business that is targeting developing countries. One is from Forbes.com; while the other is from Euro-correspondent.com. interestingly, both of these opposing understandings are admitting the controversy of excessive profits made by those rich funding agencies and their middlemen who are paid to invest on their governments’ behalf.

Looking at these contrasting perceptions, they both confirm that it is totally unacceptable to create hundreds of billions of dollars for European agencies and European citizens in just few years out of the poverty of Africa, Asia and Latin America under the covers of development aid and business. Such practices shed lights on the undisclosed objectives of development aid and business.

Claiming that the fast huge wealth made by middlemen, such as Mo Ibrahim and Celtel, from the British aid agencies backing is justified because they made mobile phone revolution to few poor countries is false. Such development was inevitable and affordable without foul play by the British development aid agencies and businesses.

Government-owned development finance institutions invest for development in poor countries – but they also earn surprisingly good returns, often for middlemen who are paid to invest on governments’ behalf, writes Stephen Gardner.
Who benefits most from the activities of government-owned development finance institutions (DFIs), which use taxpayers’ cash for investments in poor countries, with the aim of stimulating economic growth and relieving poverty?

The main beneficiaries should be the poor, especially those in the least-developed countries, which commercial banks often perceive as too risky, while offering insignificant returns. DFIs are meant to be less focused on the bottom line; in fact their governmental owners want them to fill the gaps left by private finance.

And the impact of DFIs should not be underestimated. European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI) is a Brussels-based representative organisation for the sector, counting 16 members. Jan Rixen, EDFI’s general manager, says that new commitments by members in 2008 totalled €5.2 billion, spread across 941 projects in poor countries.

This money represents an additional ten percent on top of the official development assistance budgets of countries represented in EDFI. By the end of 2008, the total EDFI portfolio was worth €16.9 billion, covering more than 4,200 investments.

EDFI’s oldest member, Britain’s CDC Group plc (formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation) also emphasises the positive development effects of its investments. In its mid-July Development Impact Report, CDC chief executive Richard Laing wrote that “we estimate that CDC’s 681 portfolio companies are supporting well over three million people – a major contribution to development in the poorest countries of the world.”

The darker side

But there is another side to DFIs, which has been exposed in the last few months, in particular by Private Eye magazine. The revelations have suggested that the “major contribution” of DFIs has been to the enrichment of individuals such as Richard Laing.

In 2007, Laing’s remuneration was almost £1 million. A House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report, published in April this year, called this “extraordinary… in a small publicly-owned organisation charged with fighting poverty.” CDC’s latest annual report shows that, following the fuss, Laing did not take an annual bonus in 2008 – but he was still paid £647,066, including a payment under a CDC “long-term incentive plan.”

One reason this has happened is that DFIs have been immensely profitable in recent years. This is the difference between government-to-government development aid and DFI investments. The latter is designed to earn a return – but only on the basis that development benefits come first.

EDFI’s Jan Rixen admits that some DFIs have inverted this principle. “Some [EDFI] members looked more at returns than development effects,” he says. He adds that a “standard” return on investment for a DFI might be between two and six percent. However, as CDC highlights prominently in its 2008 annual report, its 2004-2008 average annual return was 18 percent, leading to a cash mountain of £2.5 billion. Investment in poor countries can be surprisingly good business.

Big profits

The big profits have also provoked criticism because DFIs make extensive use of tax havens. When the Public Accounts Committee asked CDC’s Laing how many of its 72 subsidiaries were registered in offshore centres, he replied, “it will be a few; it will be 12 to 20.” In fact, CDC later clarified, the true figure is 40.

DFIs commonly channel their resources through tax haven-based equity funds, who do the daily work of selecting the right investments and overseeing the DFI stake. Jan Rixen admits that DFI use of tax havens is “very, very common,” but says this is “simply to avoid double taxation,” first on profits from investments in host countries, and second on the gains from those investments.

This is a moot point. Nicholas Bray of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says there might be legitimate reasons for using tax havens but in general “they divert funds from governments that should be due to receive taxes.” But according to Rixen, without tax havens, many investors would pull out, and individual DFI-backed companies in poor countries in any case pay local taxes.

A Norwegian government report, published in June this year, considered these issues in depth. The report found that Norway’s DFI, Norfund, was channelling directly or indirectly around 80 percent of its investments through tax havens.

The report notes that such places are highly secretive and encourage corruption in developing countries. It adds that whereas foreign investment plus development aid in developing nations totalled around $312 billion in 2006, in the same year there was “illegal capital flight” of at least $641 billion from developing countries, much of it processed through tax havens.

The tax haven identified by the Norwegian report as “the most popular location for funds in which Norfund participates,” is the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. This is also a favourite of CDC; of the 40 CDC subsidiaries based in tax havens, 18 are registered in Mauritius. CDC-backed investment funds located there include Africap, Aureos Capital, Avigo Capital, Business Partners, GroFin and I&P Capital.

Mauritius is a tiny dot on the map, with 1.3 million people. Nevertheless, because of its attractiveness to offshore financiers, it is officially the biggest foreign direct investor in India, responsible for a staggering 44 percent of the flows into that country. The United States, by comparison, is the source of a mere seven percent.

Follow the money

Companies registered in Mauritius are not required to produce annual reports, pay no capital gains tax, and pay minimal corporate tax only on profits earned in Mauritius. Antonio Tricarico of Counter Balance, an NGO network that in July published a report on European Investment Bank (EIB) lending to companies based in tax havens, says the use of locations such as Mauritius is part of the “financialisation” or “privatisation of development.”

Certainly the managers of the funds that invest cash on behalf of DFIs can benefit very handsomely. Shorecap, a Caymen Islands registered fund, which manages CDC money, boasted in its 2007 annual report of a 23 percent rate of return – a not uncommon level. Fund managers take a share of this, as well as earning fees of 1.5 to two percent on the money they invest.

According to Counter Balance, large international institutions such as the EIB actively aid and abet such practices, despite recent pronouncements from political leaders about cracking down on tax havens. The EIB lends to a number of the same investment funds as CDC and Norfund. EIB officials even sit on the boards of some equity firms, so the bank can hardly claim ignorance of their tax haven status.

Rainer Schlitt of the EIB says that the bank’s policy on tax havens is presently under review, in particular because the issue has become a focus for the Group of 20 (G-20) nations, which met in London in April. He adds that the EIB will not disclose information on the interest rates charged to tax haven-based funds investing in development projects, but says that “due to our AAA rating we are able to refinance ourselves at excellent conditions on the markets and to pass that advantage on to our clients.”

EDFI’s Jan Rixen also says that the outcome of future G-20 meetings is crucial for future DFI strategy. Tax issues are “very high on the agenda,” he says, and DFIs are waiting “to see what is coming.”

Wind of change

DFI profit seeking has led organisations such as CDC to move out of traditional but low yield sectors such as agriculture, and into sectors such as pharmaceuticals and telecommunications, with investment often directed to fast-growing emerging economies such as China and India, rather than to the poorest countries.

CDC’s 2008 annual report notes that while agriculture now makes up only five percent of its portfolio, consumer-facing businesses make up 17 percent and financial services 19 percent. The report highlights investments in a shopping mall in Accra, Ghana, and an Indian drug manufacturer that supplies global multinationals such as Pfizer.

There is nothing wrong with these investments per se, but is it necessary for DFIs to back them, when they are profitable and could attract finance from commercial banks?

Jan Rixen says EDFI members are becoming more circumspect. The pursuit of profits “was at a certain time,” he says. Now there is “increasing focus on additionality,” meaning that projects should be supported only if they cannot attract commercial finance. “We need profits but we need to look very much at development effects,” he says.

Another way

The British government has certainly ordered a change of direction for CDC. From the start of this year it must make 75 percent of new investments in countries with income per capita of $905 or less. Half of investments must be targeted to sub-Saharan Africa.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian government has told Norfund not to make new investments in tax havens. A wind of change is blowing, according to Jan Rixen, though this is also a result of the economic crisis, which has seen “international banks pull out of developing countries.”

Governments now want DFIs to focus strictly on development impacts and to work harder. “We have been told that our owners are willing to take lower returns,” Rixen says. “Governments are asking for more focus on agriculture, renewable energy and infrastructure in general.”

If this happens, it will be welcomed by development NGOs. Marta Ruiz of the European Network on Debt and Development says there is no “dogmatic position against private equity,” but the objective of generating 20-30 percent returns may contradict development aims. DFIs need to get back to their core focus, Ruiz says, which should be investments leading to “long-term, sustainable benefits for the societies where they are investing.”

Bangladesh now has 117.6 million mobile phone users, and Afghanistan has 21.6 million – both upwards of 70 percent of the population. Fifteen years ago there were essentially no cell users in either of these countries, yet a handful of entrepreneurs and investors in each decided they could create a telecom market in the heart of the developing world. Similarly, Sudanese born engineer and entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim founded African telecom giant Celtel in 1998, at which point Africa was the most underserved telecom market in the world. Today, Africa is the world’s second largest cellular market and is projected to hit one billion cell users in 2015, or about 90 percent of the continent’s population.

These examples illustrate that, even in the world’s most underdeveloped regions, there are significant opportunities for successful business and investment, yet financiers often write these ideas off as crazy. In many instances, capital is a coward. Even when opportunities exist, somebody needs to prove there is money to be made in these exotic markets by leading the way.

Attracting this capital will be necessary for effective development policy in the 21st century. Even in Africa, foreign direct investment now exceeds ODA. Perhaps the most critical role for private enterprise comes in job creation, which is a massive need for developing countries seeking economic progress and stability. Population growth will drive the need for 600 million new jobs by 2020, and in the developing world, 9 out of 10 employment opportunities are created by private enterprise.

Various leaders of international development agencies understand that their role has changed, including World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, who recently acknowledged that without robust private sector growth and private sector investment foreign providers alone, “won’t fund the critical investments needed to create enough jobs for the poor or to meet developing countries’ growing infrastructure needs.”

One way OECD governments are seeking to share risk and encourage private enterprise has been to create and expand the use of DFIs. While DFIs have been part of the global aid infrastructure for decades, their use has exploded in recent years. Total annual commitments from DFIs to the private sector have quadrupled since 2002, from just over $10 billion to about $44 billion in 2012, yet this number still drastically undervalues the role of DFIs on a range of issues including project design, technical assistance, and the ability to leverage additional funds. Every G7 country but Canada now has a DFI, and Canada (along with Australia) are considering creating one.

WHAT IS A DFI?

Development Finance Institutions make investments, operate on market principles, and in theory, invest in sectors or countries that would otherwise be unable to attract capital. Generally, DFIs seek to maximize profit and “development impact”, an ethos encapsulated in the key term “additionality”, or unique value provided by DFI involvement. Additionality is typically described along 4 parameters:

Demonstration additionality comes when a DFI makes money in an emerging sector or region, prompting private enterprise and investment to follow. Financial additionality can come in the form of longer loan periods, which allows investment into projects such as infrastructure, which require longer loan tenors to get done. DFIs also offer design additionality; a DFI works on 50 food processing plant investments (or water, or roads, or microfinance) and they bring that global expertise to an investment in, say, Tanzania. Finally, DFIs provide policy additionality because they can accelerate reform through the deals they finance. DFIs can put a project in front of policy makers and say: “if you make this change in policy, we can make this investment, and 1000 private sector jobs will be created.”

As DFIs have grown in relevance, they have had to evolve. IFC, the DFI attached to the World Bank Group, began operations with a clear focus on Latin America in the context of the Cold War 1950s; OPIC, the US DFI spun out of USAID in the early 70s, started as a provider of political risk insurance; CDC (not the Atlanta based health organization dealing with Ebola– the other one) developed agriculture in the former British colonies. Most DFIs have major or even majority portfolios in Africa, and their shareholders are asking them to go into some of the world’s most difficult environments. IFC, OPIC, and CDC (along with the other DFIs) have grown into new regions, new business lines and products. Some of these trends have included:

Establishing the Emerging Markets Private Equity Industry: DFIs helped establish private equity markets in the developing world and the Emerging Market Private Equity Association (EMPEA) (set up by IFC) now has over $1 trillion in assets between 300 member institutions.

Outside Investors: Africa50 initiative is a planned $10 billion AfDB fund aimed at mobilizing private capital for infrastructure investment in Africa. IFC Asset Management Company mobilizes third party funds, with about $4.5 billion under management.

Investments in Conflict and Post-Conflict Zones: The success of mobile telephony in Afghanistan over the last decade is an example of DFIs pushing into places where there is active conflict or where the fighting has only recently stopped.

Moving into “Frontier Markets”: This means an increased focus on Africa as well as on the poorest regions of places like Brazil and China.

DILEMMAS AND OPPORTUNITY

With increased DFI expansion, criticisms have also emerged.One serious question is, why do we need DFIs when private banks like HSBC and Citibank can provide financing in emerging markets? This criticism has grown as several dozen developing countries have become investment grade over the last decade. This critique has been curtailed somewhat, however, by post-financial crisis regulations, including Dodd-Frank and Basel III, which placed greater restrictions on the large banks. Another ongoing tension is whether DFIs should prioritize profits or development outcomes. The DFIs would answer “both” but the pressures on them are great at the investment officer level as well as at the institutional level to “book” increased investment volumes every year. Given this reality, extending a low risk high return project finance loan for a luxury hotel in Brazil will always be tempting.

One more valid concern is, when a DFI invests in a struggling or low income country, are we rewarding bad policy decisions by developing country governments? One response to this is to say that in a place like Afghanistan, we can either wait for reforms to happen or we can use a proposed investment in the telecom or mining sector to help force a constructive conversation with local policymakers.

Each of these criticisms contains more than a grain of truth, and reflects tensions fundamental to the missions of these organizations–tensions that can be managed but not “solved.” In a world where private enterprise drives jobs and prosperity, DFIs expand the frontiers of what is viewed as a profitable investment opportunity around the world.

DFIs at their best can “prime the pump”, supporting revolutionary businesses like Celtel, and opening economies to global trade and investment. DFIs at their worst invest in sectors and countries they should have exited years before in order to reap the profits to justify their continued existence. Based on the other tools available, as well as the changing world confronting policy makers, expect DFIs to be utilized more not less.

Where are DFIs looking next? DFIs are investing in water, sanitation, education, healthcare and energy. Could there be a “cellphone revolution” equivalent in the areas of toilets, vocational technical training, or micro utilities delivering water or power? If any of those breakthroughs happen, I am betting that organizations like IFC, CDC, or OPIC will be early stage investors.]

Mohamed “Mo” Ibrahim was born in Sudan; Ibrahim earned a Bachelor of Science from Alexandria University in Electrical Engineering. He started working in England and earned a master’s degree from the University of Bradford in Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and a PhD from the University of Birmingham in Mobile Communications.
In 2007 Ibrahim was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Economics by the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, and in 2011 an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
A respected international philanthropist, Mo Ibrahim is credited with “transforming a continent” and is thought to be the “most powerful black man in Britain”.

Ibrahim was born in Sudan in 1946 and describes himself as Nubian. Educated at the Nubian school in Alexandria, then at the faculty of engineering, he worked for the national telecoms company in Khartoum before moving to Britain with Hania in 1974 to study for a master in electrical engineering at Bradford. He followed this with a PhD at Birmingham, where he also taught, specialising in the then-unfashionable field of mobile communications. His pioneering academic work involved the reuse of radio frequencies. In 1983, BT lured him away from academia to be the technical director of its infant company, Cellnet (now O2).

Celtel was founded by Mo Ibrahim, originally known as “MSI Cellular Investments“. The company began operating in 1998. In January 2004, the company name was changed to “Celtel International”. In April 2005 the company was acquired by and became a subsidiary of Zain (formerly MTC, the Mobile Telecommunications Company).

Mo Ibrahim says: “In 1998, when I decided to launch a project to explore setting up mobile communications in Africa (which later became the company Celtel), the consulting firm I was running had 800 employees. We had few problems. We billed our clients, and revenue came in. Celtel started out with just five employees. Although the consulting firm provided our initial investment, I spent a significant amount of time raising capital: $16 million in the first year, to acquire licenses and begin building infrastructure, and ultimately more than $415 million during our first five years. With funding established, we had to design, build, and operate phone systems in countries with antiquated or nonexistent infrastructure.”
Some Africa experts query the work of his foundation, but no one criticises his personal manner and style.

In a video posted on YouTube on 14 April 2014 titled (Game Changers Africa – Mo Ibrahim – YouTube) it says at 7:27 “Lord Simon Cairn was the head of CDC (formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, and previous to that, the Colonial Development Corporation) at the time, one of the biggest emerging markets venture capital firms, he was later appointed as the chairman of Celtel and worked closely Ibrahim in getting the company up and running”
Lord Simon Cairn said: “the British government agency which I was chairman was the…. one of the major backers indeed throughout the life of Celtel as an independent company ….”.CDC Group plc is a Development Finance Institution owned by the UK Government. The Department for International Development is responsible for CDC, with shareholder duties managed by the Shareholder Executive. It has an investment portfolio valued around £2.8 billion and is focused on the emerging markets of Asia, Africa and Latin America, with particular emphasis on South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Criticisms of CDC

CDC was the subject of extensive investigations by the magazine Private Eye, which devoted seven pages to criticising the organisation in September 2010. Amongst other allegations, it claimed that CDC had moved away from financing beneficial international development towards seeking large profits from schemes that enriched CDC’s managers while bringing little or no benefit to the poor; and that when Actis was spun out it was given an “implausibly low valuation”. The Actis deal was also the subject of criticism by British politicians.

CDC Review and Reform

On 12 October 2010, the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell announced to Parliament that the British Government was to reconfigure CDC, saying that whilst he applauded its financial success, it had also “become less directly engaged in serving the needs of development”. On 22 October 2010 the International Development Committee announced that it was to conduct an inquiry into CDC to examine issues such as its effectiveness and possible reforms, including its abolition. Their report was published on 3 March 2011 with the government’s response delivered on 18 May 2011. In 2011 CDC implemented a new business plan, focusing its investments on the poorer countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as once again providing direct investments to businesses alongside its fund of funds model.

Actis Capital LLP (commonly known as Actis) is a private equity firm headquartered in the London Borough of Southwark. It is focused on investments in emerging markets in Africa, China, India, Latin America, and South East Asia. Actis has over 100 investment professionals located in nine countries around the emerging markets.
Actis was formed in July 2004, as a spinout of CDC Group plc (formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation), an organization established by the UK Government in 1948 to invest in developing economies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. The Actis management team acquired majority ownership of CDC’s emerging markets investment platform.
Actis has US$4.5 billion of capital under management across three global emerging markets funds and a series of smaller, focused regional funds. Actis closed its Actis Emerging Markets 3 fund with $2.9 billion of investor commitments. The fund was launched in September 2007 with an original target of $2.5 billion. CDC remains an active sponsor of Actis’ investment activities, committing $650 million to the firm’s third fund.

In 2007, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown came under attack over the sell-off of Actis after it became apparent that the formerly government-owned business had made millions of pounds for its former employees.
On 1 May 2012 the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, announced that the state’s remaining 40% stake had been sold to the Actis management for an initial £8m. The deal also included a share of future profits that could be worth over £62m to the UK Government.
In August 2013, Actis acquired the South African firm Transaction Capital’s payment services unit, Paycorp, for $95 million.
In October 2013, the firm announced it had invested $48 million in the Indian pharmaceuticals company Symbiotec Pharmalab for a “significant stake”.[

Simon Cairns, 6th Earl Cairns
Cairns is CVO, CBE (born 27 May 1939), styled Viscount Garmoyle between 1946 and 1989, is a British businessman.
Cairns was Managing Director of S. G. Warburg & Co. between 1979 and 1985, of Mercury Securities plc between 1981 and 1984, Chairman of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) between 1981 and 1992, Vice-Chairman of Mercury Securities plc between 1984 and 1986, and a Director of S. G. Warburg & Co. between 1985 and 1995. He succeeded his father in the earldom on 21 March 1989. He was Receiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall between 1990 and 2000. He was Chief Executive of S. G. Warburg & Co. between 1991 and 1995. He was invested as a Commander, Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992. He was Chairman of CDC Group plc from 1995. He was chairman of BAT plc between 1995 and 1998, and was Vice-Chairman of Zurich Allied AG and Zurich Financial Services between 1998 and 2000. He was Chairman of Allied Zurich between 1998 and 2000. Cairns was invested as a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (C.V.O.) in 2000.
He was appointed Chairman of the African telecommunications company Celtel in October 2007 and is currently a board member of the charity The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, alongside Mary Robinson and Kofi Annan.

S. G. Warburg & Co.
It was a London-based investment bank. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm was acquired by Swiss Bank Corporation in 1995 and ultimately became a part of UBS.
This bank was founded in 1946 by Siegmund Warburg, a member of the Warburg family, a prominent German-Jewish banking family and Henry Grunfeld, a former industrialist in the German steel industry. Warburg and Grunfeld, who was also Jewish, had fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
S.G. Warburg and Co. was recognized for its pioneering mergers and takeover work in the UK in the 1960s, including the first ever hostile takeover in the UK and the first ever Eurobond issue, which fostered the new Eurodollar market. A significant event in the firm’s rise to prominence was the acquisition of Seligman Bros. in 1957; through this, Warburgs gained a place on the Accepting Houses Committee composed of the seventeen top merchant banks with access to cheap capital backed by the Bank of England.
The period 1958/9 saw the Aluminium War when Tube Investments, advised by S. G. Warburg & Co, fought a fierce and ultimately successful battle to acquire British Aluminium.
The bank gained clients and grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, its strong work ethic and rigorous intellectual culture standing in stark contrast to the gentlemanly and clubbable milieu of the traditional City houses. A major participant in the “Big Bang” reforms of the 1980s under the leadership of its Chief Executive Sir David Scholey.
Following another flawed and costly expansion into the US, in 1994 a merger was announced with Morgan Stanley, but the talks collapsed.
The following year S.G. Warburg was purchased by Swiss Bank Corporation. Swiss Bank Corporation merged S.G. Warburg with its own existing investment banking unit to create SBC Warburg, which became a leading player in global investment banking. In 1997, SBC Warburg was merged with U.S. investment bank Dillon, Read & Co. to create Warburg Dillon Read.
After the merger of Swiss Bank Corporation and Union Bank of Switzerland in 1998, Warburg Dillon Read was renamed UBS Warburg. The Warburg name was finally retired in 2003 when the investment banking operation of UBS was renamed UBS Investment Bank.

The big questions are:
1- How an employed engineer raised a $ 16 million capital to establish his first business company in Uganda?
2- Is it normal to a beginner entrepreneur to establish a wealth of more than US$1.1 billion in about 15 years only?
3- What are the interests of a security company, such as Securicor, have to do with telecommunications and cell phones?
4- Why O2 was formed in 1985 as Cellnet, a 60:40 joint venture between BT Group and Securicor?
5- Why telecommunication companies rebrand themselves and change ownership very often despite of their huge profitability?
6- Why Mo Ibrahim left active but short lucrative business career and switched to a philanthropist foundation of leadership and governance in Africa?

And above all what are the roles and interests of CDC Group plc (formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, and previous to that, the Colonial Development Corporation) in establishing and managing Celtel?
Off course the budget and objectives of Mo Ibrahim Foundation which comes from the apparent founder of Celtel must also be put under scrutiny.Do the CDC Group and their spin offs have anything to do with affecting external regime change and espionage in Africa and the World under the covers of business and communication?

Dr Mohamed “Mo” Ibrahim (Arabic: محمد إبراهيم‎; born 1946) is a Sudanese-British mobile communications entrepreneur and billionaire. Ibrahim was employed by British Telecom for a time, and later worked as the technical director for Cellnet, a subsidiary of British Telecom. During the early 1980s Ibrahim taught undergraduate telecommunication courses at Thames Polytechnic later to become University of Greenwich.
In 1989 he founded MSI. In 1998, MSI spun off MSI-Cellular Investments, later renamed Celtel, as a mobile phone operator in Africa.
After selling Celtel in 2005 for $3.4 billion, he set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage better governance in Africa, as well as creating the Mo Ibrahim Index, to evaluate nations’ performance. He is also a member of the Africa Regional Advisory Board of London Business School.
He was born in 1946; Residence in Monte Carlo, Monaco and Mayfair, London, United Kingdom; his citizenship is from the United Kingdom; Alma mater: Alexandria University (1974), University of Bradford (????) and University of Birmingham (????); Occupation: Businessman and engineer; his net wealth is above US$1.1 billion.
The big questions are:
1 – How an employed engineer raised a $ 16 million capital to establish his first business company in Uganda?
2- Is it normal to a beginner entrepreneur to establish a wealth of more than US$1.1 billion in about 15 years only?
3- What are the interests of a security company, such as Securicor, have to do with telecommunications and cell phones?
4- Why O2 was formed in 1985 as Cellnet, a 60:40 joint venture between BT Group and Securicor?
5- Why telecommunication companies rebrand themselves and change ownership very often despite of their huge profitability?
6- Why Mo Ibrahim left active but short lucrative business career and switched to a philanthropist foundation of leadership and governance in Africa?

After reading many accounts and interviews about the fast and amazing climb to wealth by Dr. Mo Ibrahim it appears logical to come to the following analysis:
1- Greed and not talent is the most important quality to become very rich.
2- Secret societies are the fully driving force in organized capitalism, and not markets.
3- Lords of wealth may give capital but they shall own the funded businesses.
4- Once you are on board to become rich you are not in control of your own destiny.
5- Once you become rich you are hostage and property to the system forever. (Like in Hotel California song)
6- The case is an example of how organized capitalism works and rots; and must be taught in colleges.
7- Your family and your personal choices are included in the capitalist project.
8- Collecting and selling information is absolutely the biggest businesses in this era.
9- No need to pay most taxes if you are serving the system abroad and you are compliant.
10- Citizenship in capitalist states may be given to bank accounts and not to individuals.
11- You are allowed to be very rich but not to reach super rich status.
12- Interests of banks are paramount those of nations, governments and humanity.
13- Giving bribes to heads of states and senior officials are necessary to avoid delays and junior kickbacks.
14- Issuing mobile prepaid scratch is like unofficially printing money and writing bank checks.
15- Foreign businesses can sell local services locally but still transfer national wealth abroad.
16- Telecommunication businesses are made intentionally excessively profitable.
17- Spending money in creating temporary businesses is recoverable by using then selling them.
18- Similarity in spin off firms’ names is common practice for switching between owners and markets.
19- Investing in human resources development is not good for philanthropist capitalists.
20- Corruption in Europe is mostly acceptable and allowed at top levels but forbidden at low levels.
21- Academic degrees and professional credentials are also market tools for capitalist business prestige.
22- Places like Monte Carlo are suitable for shelving expired rich human products.
23- The very rich must keep the true stories of their success to themselves.
24- Laws and regulations are made to deter and control common people who are out of the system.
25- The rule of supply and demands applies to the market of chances of easy profits before markets.
These conclusions might be wrong; but the witness on the truth in this particular case is only the honesty of Dr. Mo Ibrahim.

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“The West is not genius, and we’re not stupid, they only support the failed to succeed, and we fight the successful so to fail.” Professor Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian Chemist and US citizen, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry for 1999.
I add to this wise say: The rise of the West does not mean that they are people with a good conscience, but their rise is because the institutions in the West allow big and abroad criminality and forbid internal and small criminality; while our invalid institutions and wealthy thrive on local and petty criminality.
Success does not mean participating in corruption, but it is a commitment to principles. Thus success is not measured by money and fame, but it is measured by sleeping well and self-satisfaction.
We must not feel failed, but feel outraged.
You would really be a failure when you chase common and wrong understanding even if you’re famous and you have a lot of money.

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I am struggling with a corrupt legal system and a corrupt ruling party here in Sudan. Any thug; pervert; thief; or failed person can only show his or her party membership card to police investigator or prosecutor and laws will violated and legal cases will be tampered with

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“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
― Gloria Steinem
"The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
- John F. Kennedy (Commencement address, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, June 11, 1962)
The last of the very few decent Presidents America ever had